A Glass of Poison
by MiloOfTheKey
Summary: "I'm not going to hurt anyone." "Except yourself," Nate counters. An alternate, and actually original, perspective on the whole Cluster-Dad Eliot concept that my other work, Crowbar, explores. (Sensate!Eliot AU) (Mention of Suicide)


Nate watched as the young woman - no older than a teen, no matter how old the slant of her shoulders proclaimed her - carefully slipped another pill from the open bottle beside her and began to grind it with one of the glasses the bar kept for water.

He'd seen enough.

He didn't bother keeping his steps quiet as he crossed the bar. Even so, sitting down across from her barely elicited a reaction; her movements didn't even slow as she rocked the glass along its base, the dull sound almost musical if not for the grimness of her task.

"I don't know what is worse," Nate finally speaks after a minute, cataloging everything from how she doesn't look up at his words to the dirt lightly caking her fingers. "The chance that that tea might be for someone else, or that it isn't."

"This isn't any of your business, sir," She replies in a tone trying to match his same nonchalance, but falling short and only sounding tired. "I'm not going to hurt anyone."

"Except yourself," Nate counters swiftly, tilting his head with a jerk as he eyed the mostly empty orange bottle between them. "Chlordiazepoxide. That's strong."

"It's painless," She corrects. "And this is still none of your business."

"You're a child in a bar I live over, that makes it my business," Nate corrects right back.

"Not a child," Is all she has to respond to that.

They sit in silence. Another two pills are crushed and tipped into the glass before she speaks again.

"I'm not going to stay here," The girl - really, just a little girl - wryly assures him, tilting two pills into her palm this time. "There's a bus that comes at three. Half an hour and then I drain this and get on. You don't have to deal with the fallout."

"Awfully well planned," Nate comments, glancing at the clock and catching eyes with Sophie from where she sits with Parker across the room. "And what will you do when the day ends and the bus driver has to call the police?"

"That, at least, _definitely_ won't be your problem," She grits, showing that she hadn't considered that and she was starting to get irritated. Good. Irritated was better than suicidal.

"And when they trace you back to here?" Nate asks, pushing the issue. "Teen girl found dead on bus, leading back to beloved Boston bar? Sounds like my problem then."

"There's no cameras in here and the note in my pocket proclaims that my boyfriend was the only one who could talk me down. The security tape from the ATM across the street will show me climbing on that bus on my own accord, slowly and unhurried. No one gets blamed but me."

"Why here?" He asks, catching Hardison snapping a photo of the girl as he joined the girls. "That note is bogus, I can tell that from your tone of voice. You planned this out perfectly so that no one would get blamed - I bet you even have a suitably fake ID, or none at all on you, that makes it that they can't even find your supposed boyfriend. You planned everything. And you came _here_, to a bar I have a feeling you snuck into. Why here?"

The girl paused. Masked her silence by picking up and estimating the number of pills left in her bottle.

"You don't want my help, you've barely even looked at me," Nate pressed on. "A police officer walked by not half an hour ago - still in uniform. A regular. You've been here longer. You probably didn't even realize that she was there. But you're still _here_."

"Nothing you can say will stop me," She scoffed at him, and Nate recognizes the truth within the layer of that.

"Nothing _I_ can say, then," He nods, acknowledging that truth. "But someone else."

The girl swallows dryly, making her throat bob.

"My … he comes here, often," She admits, as if this twisted half-admission is a precious jewel. "I had hoped that … maybe I'd be able to say goodbye. But he won't talk me out of this."

"If he cares about you -" Nate tries to assure her, but he is cut off by her burning eyes latching onto his.

"He _won't_," She insists, furious. "He cares - I know he does - but he _won't_."

"Won't," Nate echoes the word, studying her. "You think that he'll let you do this, whoever he is. That he can stop you, but he _won't_."

"He won't," She repeats, dumping the last few pills into the mug in her hand, picking up a spoon and stirring it. "He won't."

"And if I try and stop you?" Nate asks her, seeing the action for what it was - an indication of the nearing conclusion of both this conversation and the life of the girl in front of him. "Or anyone else in this bar?"

"This is the most painless way for me to die," She shrugs, as if she couldn't care less. "But it is not the last way. If you try and stop me, take away my mug, then it's on to the twenty or thirty backup plans on my person alone. I'm … just giving my last choice a little bit of ceremony, just for myself."

"Ceremony," Nate repeats, eyes locking for a moment with Hardison - the hacker's fingers stretched into a fake phone. He mouthed 'Eliot' overegateratedly and gestured wildly at the door behind him, tapping his watch. Soon, then. "Your ceremony is grinding up pills and then hopping on a bus."

"Not everyone gets so much," She replies cryptically. She picks up the cap of the pill bottle, spins it between her fingers for a moment before replacing it, tucking the container into a ragged jacket pocket.

Nate sees the moment Eliot walks in, how he enters quiet as a whisper and scans the room - his eyes first landing on Nate and then continuing on to the girl.

So Nate _sees_ the shock and heartbreak on his Hitter's face.

Nate sits back, watches as Eliot takes calm, unhurried steps to their table. How he pulls out a chair across from the girl and sits. How he makes no move to take the cup.

Nate is beginning to have a bad feeling about who the suicidal girl was here to see.

"Raul is dead," The girl states after a moment, eyes never leaving the cup in her hand. "He died in a territory dispute." She swallowed, clenching her hands around the mug of rapidly cooling deadly tea. "Naka died next. She starved, too proud to get help for herself - too busy saving everyone else."

Nate saw Eliot tense with every name.

"Natsumi was sick even before. She died after Naka. I think she gave up."

"I'm sorry," Eliot chokes out - and even with the sound of what Nate can't help but assume was _a list of dead kids,_ some part of him is shocked by the blatant, if partially hidden, show of emotion.

"Then … then Anton was caught." The girl's admission was barely audible. "Whispers got him. He was with them for three days before he bit through his tongue and drowned in his own blood."

… Whispers?

"I -" Eliot can't even finish the words.

"He was smart. Did it as quickly as he could," The girl continued - eyes distant and cloudy. "But he didn't do it before they … questioned him."

Nate had a feeling that if Eliot was in better control of his emotions then he would take this obviously encrypted conversation elsewhere. A good thing he wasn't, because Nate was _very_ interested in the kind of people that forced a teen girl to have that look on her face.

"Who?" Eliot finally asked. "Who are they after?"

"Just me," The girl smiled a sad smile that couldn't reach her eyes. "I always was the first on Anton's mind."

She finally looked up at him, hands leeched of blood around her poisoned drink. "I'm sorry. This is selfish."

"Don't be," Eliot immediately forbids her. "I - I didn't even know … I couldn't say goodbye to the rest of you. And I'm sorry for that."

"You thought they were on Blockers," The girl laughed painfully. "That's fine. When Raul died we thought that too. Didn't know the signs to look for until Naka's heart gave out."

Eliot bowed his head.

"But it was selfish, my coming here," She repeats. "But I hope that since I took the long way round, they won't find me. I was very, _very_ careful. Overlapping doses of blockers and everything."

Nate immediately remembers the bottle of black pills not quite a secret after all this time, refilling with clockwork efficiency and taken with the same precision. Intimidating name, said offhandedly once, and the former insurance investigator didn't like the connotations of it.

"That's not safe, they're not meant to be used like that," Eliot scolds, seemingly on reflex, before cringing at his own words.

"Oh, Eli," The girl laughs painfully. "This was never a long term solution."

"You're going to let her," Nate forces himself to admit, turning with no small degree of indignation to his - at this point, after this long - friend. "She's a _child_."

"And when they find me, that won't matter," The girl cuts in, and her use of _when_ and not _if_ is chilling. Eliot doesn't even correct her.

"I … I just," The girl stops, collecting herself. "I know that I have to do this. That if they find me then I'll just be condemning everyone else. But I had to know."

She locked eyes with Eliot again, and despite their age gap there is a level of intense familiarity that Nate had never seen between Eliot and … well, anyone.

"When - when they died, for you …" She swallowed. "Nevermind."

"I'm sorry," Eliot apologizes fiercely. "This is all my fault."  
"No, it's not -"

"I should've eaten a bullet the moment I knew that -"

"_Don't you dare!_" The girl is suddenly _screaming_, and she's standing and furious and Nate takes the time to dump the tea into a nearby plant. "_Don't you dare say that_."

"I condemned you to _death_!" Eliot is hissing back, heartbroken. "If I had never given birth to your cluster then you and Anton and Raul and Naka and everyone would be _alive_. _Safe_."

"Don't you _dare _say that!" She spits at him, lowering her voice and shoving at his chest uselessly. "Yeah, they died. Yeah, Anton died because of BPO - but Clare was _drowning_ under her _dick _of a father. Without us she would've crumbled! You taught Amir how to _survive_, and the rest of us taught him how to _live_ even in a bloody _warzone_! Pierre was just a face in the crowd and we made him feel _seen_. Don't you _dare_ say for a _moment_ that you would've never let us form because you're afraid of the big bad wolf!"

"Whispers is not a _wolf _from a _fairytale_, Ada!" Eliot spits back, and Nate is trying hard to keep up with all the names. "If I had never -"

"I would've died right along with you!" She - Ada - cut him off. "And now I'm going to keep everyone safe and die right now."

"You _can't_," Eliot pleads, but Nate can see him fighting with himself.

"How many people have you saved?" Ada asks him, fierce. "Hundreds? Thousands? Their lives, their health, their livelihoods? You _save _people. But if your cluster hadn't killed themselves to keep you _safe_ then no one would've been saved."

"Please, Ada, _please_," Eliot begs. "We'll find another way - we can do _something_. We can meet with the Marks cluster; the Archipelago says that they're going up against Whispers again and might manage to get an upper hand on him."

"Whispers _always_ has the upper hand - you know that better than anyone."

"I know," Eliot crumbles.

Ada - _whoever_ she is - checks her cup. Finds it empty.

"I was going to make this clean," Ada laughs with a tinge of hysteria. "Guess we're doing this the hard way."

She pulls out a knife, immediately pressing it against her neck.

"I'm going to walk out that door to board the bus on the corner," She smiles at Eliot sadly. "Then I'm going to get off and slit my throat. Don't follow me - you shouldn't have to see that."

"Ada -"

"_No_, Dad."

Nate feels air leave his lungs, and suddenly all the history behind their eyes makes a terrifying amount of sense.

"How many people did you save? Will you save?" Ada - Eliot's _daughter_ \- asks again, and there's a terrifying sort of desperation behind her eyes. "And how many will Clare? Pierre? Amir? And how many chances will be lost if I don't do this?"

"And how many lives will be lost if you _do_?" Eliot finds his voice, reaching out to her - palms begging to be heard. "I may be alive because of my cluster, but I live every day _aching_ for them. They're a gaping hole and some days the only thing that keeps me going is that one day this day would come. That one of my kids would be right here - where you are _right now_ \- and I would be able to stop you. Because if you do this now, then when Clare gets caught she will. Or Amir. Or Pierre. And one of you is going to be left alone, just like me - bitter and angry and _useless_ and they will wish that they had died too."

"I don't want that," Ada admits, broken. "I never wanted that."

"And that's why you're here," Eliot presses, stepping towards her. "That's why you came all the way to Boston when you've got half the world after your ass. That's why you didn't kill yourself the moment that Whispers got your name. Because you don't want to leave them alone."

"I don't want to leave _you_," Ada chokes, sobbing as her arm dropped. "You're on blockers almost 24/7 these days. Clare has to be, and Amir is in so much danger all the time that he can't _not_. And Pierre … Pierre is afraid. I'm the only one. I'm the only one and so was Anton but we were the only ones who were there when you weren't on the stupid pills. Who were _there_ when you came back online. And without Anton …"

"Oh sweetheart," Eliot laughed wetly. "You don't have to worry about me."

Nate let out a sigh of relief as the knife finally fell to the floor.

* * *

"Ow!" Ada yelped, feeling a pinch on her arm. She turned to see the blonde woman - Parker, probably - capping a syringe and skipping away from her. She hastily began to inspect the injection site as her Cluster-Dad began to protest.

"Parker, what the hell -"

"Your teenage daughter nearly killed herself less than a minute ago, and has been planning to do so for God knows how long," The man - Nate, she'd guessed - cut Eliot off. "Just a little Ativan so she doesn't do that again anytime soon. Barely a full dose."

"Rude," Ada shot to him, frowning as the calming quality quickly swept through her. She swayed a little on the spot; luckily Eliot stepped up to scoop her up, dropping her on the couch like he used to do when she was eight.

Guess it was lucky that they owned the building. And that they were only a floor or two up.

"I feel wibbly," Ada informs the room once she gets settled on the couch, staying still as she gets patted down and has her knives, guns, poison packets, wires, lock pick sets, flechettes, and _earrings_ removed. Sure, they doubled as garroting wire but _still_.

The not-drugged side of Ada was pleased by the shocked and impressed looks that her pile of weapons garnered - especially from Parker. Even if it meant that she lost the element of surprise.

"Ada Reichard, meet Sophie Devereaux, Nathan Ford, Alec Hardison, and Parker," Eliot introduced. "Everyone, this is Ada, my adopted daughter."

"_Adopted_," Hardison laughed kinda-hysterically. "When did _you_ have time to adopt a _kid_?"

"He adopted eight," Ada felt like helpfully adding, smirking at her Dad's glare. "Even if four of them are dead now."

"Raul, Naka, Natsumi, and Anton," Sophie repeated sympathetically. "I'm sorry for your loss. It must have been hard."

"Oh you have _no idea_," She mutters darkly, removing her boots and chucking them at Eliot - she didn't want to get mud on the couch.

Nate looked like he needed a drink. Ada was glad he was still sober, at this point. Dead kids and all.

"_Eight_?" Parker repeated excitedly, not completely picking up the mood. "Oh! Can we meet them? _Please_?"

"_No_," Eliot and Ada growled at the same time, startling the team.

"Do you want them to _die_?" Ada snarled.

"Good segway - who exactly is after you?" Nate cut in, ducking around a pissed off Eliot. "Who is this Whispers."


End file.
